Airlines can face strict regulations concerning the installation, maintenance, and operation of certain safety and other like equipment onboard of aircraft, such as life-vests, also known as personal flotation devices (PFD). For example, a PFD may be stowed in a specially designated area, such as under a seat or in an overhead compartment. The PFD may be used by a passenger during an emergency water landing. Periodic inspections may be used to verify the presence of each PFD in each designated area. In some example, an inspection may involve checking the expiration date and other information associated with each PFD.
Currently, manual inspections of such equipment are performed by airline crew members. Specifically, a crew member may perform a visual check of each designated area, visually confirming the presence of each PFD. This manual inspection may time consuming and labor intensive, especially in modern aircraft designed to fly hundreds of passengers. Yet, airlines try to maintain very strict time schedules and minimize time on the ground. Also, visual verification may be prone to human errors. For example, a crew member may miss one or more designated area or mistakenly identify a wrong object for a PFD.
An alternative to a manual visual inspection may involve equipping PFDs and other like inspected objects with specific devices, such as radio frequency identification (RFID), enabling automated inspection without requiring line of sight during the inspection. However, receiving a response signal from a RFID tag does not confirm that the tag is attached to an inspected object. Furthermore, receiving the response signal does not allow precisely determining the location of the tag and/or the object. A confirmation that all RFID tags are readable inside the aircraft cabin is not sufficient for many types of inspection. For example, it is important to know that all PFDs are present, and not just RFID tags, and that each PFD is present at its designated area. In case of emergency, airline crew members and passengers need to know precise locations of each PFD.
Accordingly, systems and methods for presence verification, location confirmation, and identification of objects within an aircraft cabin are desired.